Promiscuous Primates on the Hunt

Bonobos, those love promiscuous primates, may not be so different from their chimpanzee cousins after all. Many people do not know about bonobos, who are less aggressive and more sexual than the widely-known chimpanzee. A common tie has been found in that both species hunt other primates. The phenomenon was observed in Senegalese chimpanzees by anthropologist Jill Pruetz and reported in National Geographic. Chimps were witnessed to have carved sticks into spears, which they then used to hunt bush babies. It was previously thought that bonobos did hunt, but that did not include other primates. Now it turns out that is not the case.    

Recent findings in LuiKotale, Salonga National Park, in the Democratic Republic of Congo were published in the October 13, 2008 issue of Current Biology. “These findings are particularly relevant for the discussion about male dominance and bonding, aggression and hunting — a domain that was thought to separate chimpanzees and bonobos,” said Gottfried Hohmann of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.

“In chimpanzees, male dominance is associated with physical violence, hunting and meat consumption. By inference, the lack of male dominance and physical violence is often used to explain the relative absence of hunting and meat-eating in bonobos. Our observations suggest that, in contrast to previous assumptions, these behaviors may persist in societies with different social relations.”

In bonobos, it is found that both sexes participate in hunting. This has made scientists question their former belief that hunting was associated with male-dominance, as witnessed in chimpanzees.

To learn more about the ever-wonderful bonobo, check out the article on bonobo society in Smithsonian Magazine, or this other great article from Smithsonian about bonobo language.